Extra Incentive
by gpoy
Summary: James Potter was never one for schoolwork, and never expected NEWTs to be his primary concern at the end of the year. How will he pass his exams? Perhaps with a little help from the Head Girl?
1. Four NEWTs

_Hello!  
__First off, thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter of The Beautiful Game. I didn't have a chance to thank you, so . . . thank you. __Also, thank you very much to Georgia, who betaed this fic for me. Cheers.  
__This story probably wont be nearly as long as the last one because it has a relatively simple plot line,but it's an excuse for me to write fluff at any rate. _

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Extra Incentive

**One – Four NEWTs**

While waiting for Dumbledore to arrive in his office, James Potter contemplated that he had quite a nice balance in life. The number of times he'd been hauled into a teacher's office for one misdemeanour or another was quite close to the number of times he'd asked out Lily Evans.

In the last year, after becoming Head Boy, there had been a lull on the 'being hauled into teachers' offices' front, but no let up on the 'attempting to take out Lily' front. However, with the recent events of the evening, it looked as if things were once again reaching an equilibrium. The number was catching up again to the amount of times he'd asked Lily out, which was, interestingly enough, exactly the same as the amount of times she'd told him to go and hang himself by his Gryffindor tie, or words to that effect.

What was it those top magic-medi-health-wizard-guru-type people said? Everything in moderation, wasn't it? At this rate, he'd live to be two hundred.

He twisted round in his chair to see who had come in through the stone gargoyle, and was surprised to see that it wasn't Dumbledore at all, it was the Head Girl, the very object of his thoughts and the love of his life-

"Oh, good grief, it's you."

-the last aspect of which wasn't really reflected in her attitude towards him.

"Lily," he said, scrambling up from his chair, "what are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? What are _you_ doing here?" she demanded, clearly horrified at the sight of him.

"Well, let's see, what do I remember about it?" James said, "I passed Snape in the corridor, got into a fight with Snape, was just about to surgically remove Snape's unnaturally huge nose, McGonagall caught us, sent Snape to his Head of House, and sent me here."

"Why did I even ask?" Lily wondered aloud, rolling her eyes.

"Firstly," James said, offering her the only chair in the room. Lily gave him a strange look, he'd never done that before. "Why are you here?"

"Owled by Dumbledore," she said, checking the chair cushion for pins and puddles of _Stick-a-Brick_ glue before sitting down. "Said he wanted to see me."

"Secondly, are you free this weekend?"

"Not for you, I'm not," she replied smoothly.

"What a shame," came a voice from behind them. The Head students turned to see the Headmaster entering through a door behind his desk. Lily went slightly pink, while James stuck his hands in his pockets and looked sideways.

"A good evening to both of you," Dumbledore said, sitting down in his chair and peering at them above his half-moon spectacles. "Now, Mr Potter, would you please tell me why you think you are here."

"Er . . . because . . . up until ten minutes ago, I was intent on causing Snape as much bodily harm as humanly possible?"

"That is the likelihood," nodded Dumbledore. "Would you please tell me how this came about?"

"I was on my rounds," James began, "and I happened to pass Snape on the east corridor of the sixth floor. I told him he was out of bounds, and proceeded to take ten points off his house. Snape then commented that other prefects never took as much off for the same offence, and asked if I took off so much because of the fact that Lily doesn't appreciate my advances. He then proceeded to both say and imply things about the Head Girl that I don't deem fit to be said in public, sir."

Lily closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. He was such an embarrassment sometimes . . . well, most of the time, really.

"Indeed," said Professor Dumbledore lightly, as if he had just been told a mildly interesting piece of gossip. "And as for why you are here, Miss Evans, I shall tell you, because I'm sure you don't know. I have asked you here as a consultant as to what Mr Potter's punishment should be."

Lily immediately brightened at these words, while James blanched. When he did something like this, he usually got away with a detention or maybe a few points taken off, because the majority of teachers at Hogwarts liked him. However, hand his punishment over to someone who blatantly despised him . . .

He swallowed.

"Well, Miss Evans, any ideas?"

Lily fought not to clap her hands with excitement. Instead, she racked her brains for something that would be a suitable punishment for James, and not just for the fight with Snape, for everything that he had ever done that had gone unpunished.

Now, what did James really love doing? Quidditch immediately sprang to mind, but she couldn't ban him from playing in matches, because they had already won the cup for that year, and besides, the rest of the house would be after her blood. He liked causing trouble with his friends, but she couldn't prohibit him from seeing them, because they'd probably have something to say about that.

Fine, what did James really hate doing? Lily cast around for something he never did. He never paid attention in lessons, but she could hardly force him to pay attention. Hmmm . . .

Wait, maybe something could come of that idea! James never paid attention in class, he never did his homework, his marks were appalling, and hated revising for exams! That was it!

"I think," Lily said, trying with all her might to hide her smirk, "that we should make Mr Potter pass all of his four chosen NEWTs, and if he doesn't, he should be made to repeat his last year of Hogwarts until he does pass them."

James felt faint. This couldn't be happening to him. Even if he _did_ have a chance of passing his NEWTs at the beginning of the year (which he didn't), he certainly didn't have a chance with the exams only a little over a week away. His fate lay in the hands of the Headmaster.

"An intriguing idea," Dumbledore declared, his brow furrowed in thought, and James felt his breath freeze in his chest. That was it then, he was doomed to spend the rest of his days at Hogwarts, trying futilely to pass his public exams forever. Suddenly, living to the age of two hundred didn't seem like such wonderful prospect anymore.

"And yet," Dumbledore continued, "with no offence meant, I don't really see Mr Potter passing _all_ his NEWTs . . ." James breathed again, ". . . without any help, that is."

Both James and Lily frowned in confusion.

"I shall be enforcing this suggestion," Dumbledore said, "as long as you, Miss Evans, agree to help Mr Potter in his studies."

James grinned. This changed everything!

"A . . . er . . ." Lily stammered. "I'll . . . er . . . have to think about it."

"Of course," Dumbledore smiled, the edges of his beard rising. "It's only fair that you have some time to sleep on it. A good night to both of you," and he walked them both to the corridor outside his office.

As soon as the stone gargoyle had frozen back into place, Lily spoke.

"Before you ask either: no, I will not help you pass your exams, and no, I will not go out with you."

"You are getting good at this," James told her, grinning, "but why not?" Lily gave him an incredulous look.

"_Because!_" she exclaimed, before realising that this particular method of reasoning wasn't going to get them anywhere. "Potter, it's as simple as this," she continued, speaking very slowly and clearly. "_I don't like you_."

"Not even a bit?" James asked. He had known it was bad, but he hadn't thought it was as bad as all that.

Lily didn't answer. She just gave a short sigh and started to walk briskly towards the Gryffindor Tower, but James hurried ahead and turned to walk in front of her, backwards.

"Lily, just listen for minute," James said, and the Head Girl stopped. "I know I'm the person that's least likely to be in your good books at the moment, but if it means anything, you were right. I am all the things you said I am, you know, all that stuff about being arrogant and pig-headed?"

"And moronic," Lily said.

"Yes, that too," nodded James.

"And conceited," she added.

"Yes, and that," James assented.

"And egotistical."

"Look, the point is," James said, "I am prat, and I know that now, thanks to you and your regular ego-bashing. Anyway, I want to make it up to you. I want to get into your good books, and if that means getting four NEWTs, well, then so be it."

Lily was finding it hard to believe that these words were actually coming out of James Potter's mouth. He would have died before he'd said anything like this in fifth year.

"Will you help me pass these exams, Lily?" he asked. There was silence for a moment as she scrutinized him with narrowed eyes.

"It's going to be a lot of work," she told him.

"Fine," he said breezily, shaking his head slightly.

"You're going to have to pay attention in class."

"Consider it done."

"We'll have to do extra work after lessons, and all day on the weekend."

"Brilliant," he said, "I mean, sure," he amended, under a glare. She sighed and looked him straight in the eye.

"Are sure you want to do this?" she asked him seriously. "I mean, Hogwarts is a cool place, but eight years here is a bit too much."

"Lily," he replied, "I promise to you now, that I will do everything in my power to pass these exams, if you help me do it." She pouted thoughtfully for a moment and sighed again.

"Fine," she said, and held out her hand. James grinned and shook it, anticipation ballooning up inside him.

"Maybe," she said, as they began their walk back to the Gryffindor Tower, "if we check your papers afterward, and it seems like you passed all four, then I might just consider attending one Hogsmeade weekend with you."

The words took even her by surprise. _Where had that come from? _"What?" asked James, stopping in his tracks.

"You heard," Lily told him, and carried on walking, "consider it as a little extra incentive."

"_A little extra incentive?_" James asked incredulously. "What _more_ incentive do I need? Seriously Lily, you had better prepare yourself for the best Hogsmeade weekend the world has even known, because _I am going to pass my exams!_"

For the entire walk back, James wouldn't stop listing all the things he wanted to do with her in Hogsmeade. Lily stayed quiet, but listened nonetheless, and had to admit that sampling the new rainbow-flavour candyfloss at Honeydukes, betting on warlocks' drinking matches in the Three Broomsticks and finding excuses to try out Zonko's products on the shop assistants sounded like a lot of fun.

It was only once they had scrambled through the Portrait Hole that Lily began to wonder what she had let herself in for. She was just about to start up the girls' staircase when the Head Boy caught hold of her wrist.

"What n-?" she began to ask, but apparently all James wanted was to look at her uncertainly for a moment, then bend down to kiss her softly on the cheek.

"Thanks, Lily," he told her, and with one last smile, he disappeared into the boys' dormitories.

Lily was left to sink down into an armchair and contemplate her life, the balance of which had just been pulled out from under her feet.


	2. Pride and Persistence

**Two – Pride and Persistence **

On their hurried way to Charms the following morning, James excitedly informed his friends of the latest turn of events in his relationship with the Head Girl. He would have told them over breakfast, but they always overslept on Monday mornings and so he hadn't really had time to sit down at the Gryffindor table. Therefore, he had to impart his tale during their traditional mad scrabbling to get to their first lesson on time.

". . . And then she said she'd check my answers afterwards, and if it looked like I'd passed, she come to Hogsmeade with me!"

"She didn't!" said Sirius, shaking his head disbelievingly while trying to put his tie on at the same time.

"She did!" James insisted. "She said it would act as an extra incentive."

"I won't believe any of this until I see it," Sirius said resolutely, "I mean, you haven't been a prat all year, and she _still_ hasn't warmed up to you."

"That's true," Remus agreed. "You've made such a point being better behaved. Avoiding contact with Snape at all costs, actually carrying out your Head Boy Duties, being nice to the first years, late-night wonderings down by fifty per cent . . . and I couldn't say that she's given you a second look."

"Well, this is my chance to prove myself," James declared, grinning and hitching his books further up his chest to strike a determined pose. Sirius snorted. "But on a sober note," James continued in a low tone, "I have to pass these exams, at any cost.'

"Even at the cost of actually working?" asked Remus amusedly. James gave a tragic sigh.

"If that's what it takes, then that's what I'll give it," he said.

"Well, good luck, Prongs!" Peter said.

"He needs more than bloody luck," Sirius muttered, as they turned the corner into the History of Magic corridor, "he needs to have his head examined if you ask me."

"Hey, there she is!" said Peter, pointing. James followed his finger among the corridor full of chatting students to see Lily standing outside their classroom, books in hand, looking far too pretty for a Monday morning.

"Holy Hippogriffs," Sirius said, as they approached her, "you _were_ telling the truth!"

"Good morning, Lily," said Remus, "who would you be waiting for?"

"This one," Lily said, nodding at James.

"And why would that be?" asked Sirius curiously.

"He's promised to _concentrate_ today," Lily informed them conversationally, as if she herself were surprised that James had the capacity to even suggest such a thing. "He's promised to do everything in his power from now to pass his exams, and unfortunately, I've promised to help him. So I'll have to sit next to him to see if he actually carries out his promise."

"That's very selfless of you, seeing as you're not exactly fond of James," Remus said approvingly.

"Thanks," Lily said, before latching onto James's arm and dragging him into the classroom. "Come on, you," she said, in a voice that left no room for argument. James found he quite liked the voice.

The look on the Head Boy's face suggested he had just stumbled into Zonko's secret warehouse. The rest of the Marauders stood back a bit to watch Lily lead him in by the arm as he staggered dreamily after her.

"Now _there's_ something you don't see every day," Sirius said and Remus hummed in agreement.

Once they had pushed their way to the front of the classroom through the group of chatting students, Lily yanked James around and shoved him forward into a row of seats. Looking around, James sat down while Lily flopped down next to him and opened her bag.

"So this is what it looks like from the front row," the Head Boy nodded contemplatively.

"Yes, it may seem odd at first but don't worry, you'll get used it eventually," Lily replied, rolling her eyes.

"Lily!" someone called from the back, and James turned around to watch a blonde girl fight her way through the students, regularly hitting people over the head with her wand to get them out of the way. James half recalled her name as Bones and her house as Ravenclaw but if Sirius hadn't gone out with her at some point then he didn't expect himself to get any further than that.

"Lily!" she called again, shoving the corner of her book in Peter's back. "Where _is_ that girl?"

"Amelia!" Lily shouted, twisting round and waving. "Over here, you daft thing!"

Amelia blew upwards into her fringe as she dumped her bag on the desk next to Lily's and sat down.

"Morning!" she said breezily, then she froze. Eyes narrowing, she pointed at James, then she turned round to point at where he usually sat, then she turned back to point at him again. "_What_ is going on?" she asked cautiously, as if she wasn't quite sure whether to believe what she was seeing or not.

"Potter," Lily said, as if she wasn't expecting Amelia to believe what she was saying on top of what she was seeing, "has taken it upon himself to pass all of his NEWTs."

"He hasn't," Amelia said, tilting around Lily to frown at James.

"He has," Lily nodded, and James wasn't sure whether it was his imagination, or whether or not her voice had carried the faintest trace of pride.

"Blimey," Amelia said, blinking. "Hold on, what has that got to do with you?"

"I am going to help him," Lily told her, and at the same time telling herself. Amelia looked at James.

"She isn't," she said to James in disbelief.

"She is," James nodded, fighting not to grin. Amelia pulled a strained face.

"This is far too much ground-breaking information for this time of the morning," she said, cringing, before turning around briefly along with everyone else to see Professor Flitwick enter at the back of the classroom and make his way up to his desk.

"'Scuse me, mind out, now," he said as students reluctantly took their seats. "Find a seat now, we have _mountains_ of NEWT revision to do today . . ."

"Gosh, he looks tall from down here," James muttered to Lily.

"Look, what you're going to do is write down anything you don't understand," Lily hissed back, "and we'll go over it later, all right?"

"Gotcha," nodded James, thinking that this revision lark wasn't going to be as bad as he thought.

Half an hour later, the Head Boy's hand was cramping like no tomorrow.

"Now we all know," Professor Flitwick was saying, "that the Hilarius Charm cannot be used on those who are taking medication or those with heart conditions. Does any one want to write anything down?"

James, who had already written everything down, took the brief opportunity to pull a face of pain and massage the palm of his right hand. While others began to scribble idly, Lily glanced over at the long scroll of parchment in front of the Head Boy and raised her eyebrows.

"On the one hand, I am impressed," she told him quietly, "on the other hand I'm horrified."

"On _my_ one hand, I'm _in pain_," James murmured back, flapping his hand to get the blood flowing again and cringing when two of his knuckles cracked.

"Look," Lily said, pulling the scroll towards her, "don't worry about it, I'll finish them . . ."

"Oh, no you don't," James told her, pulling the scroll back his way, "I'll never remember all this stuff if I don't write it down."

As professor Flitwick resumed his lecture, and James resumed his tortured scrawling, Lily had to say that she was impressed, on both hands.

"Well, I should think that's it for today," Professor Flitwick beamed as his class casually began to gather their things. "If you have any queries about the exams, don't hesitate to ask me!"

People stared at James as he followed Lily out of the classroom. One by one, by word of mouth or by word of note-passing, each and every person in Monday morning Charms had been alerted to the fact that not only was James Potter sitting at the front, not only was he sitting next to Lily Evans, not only was she _letting him,_ but he was also _writing stuff down. _

In second from last row, Edward Creevey swore under his breath and wished his camera wasn't in the shop for repairs.

As soon James and Lily had reached the freedom of the corridor, Lily spun around so that James almost ran into her.

"Name three uses for the salt pouring charm!" she demanded, craning her neck upwards to glare threateningly at the Head Boy.

"Er . . ." James said, caught off guard, "cooking, making snow on roads safe and killing slugs!"

"What is the wand movement for conjuring a bouquet of Venus Fly-traps?"

"Four twirls and a poke!"

"In _what_ year was the welding charm invented, by _who_ and _what _was their_ favourite colour?_"

"261CE, Porus Vegetal, and buttercup yellow," James said smugly, "which explains the colour of the sparks produced in the charm."

"Oh, Holy Mother of Murtlap," exclaimed Amelia, who had come up behind James. "He _was_ listening!"

"It seems sitting next to Lily did the trick, then," Remus commented.

"Avert your eyes, everyone!" Sirius declared, "this sight is not natural!"

"I'm sorry, Padfoot," James told his best friend sincerely, "but it must be done." He hit the scrolls of notes he had taken against the palm of his hand resolutely. "If this is the stuff I have to spurt in exams, then spurt this stuff I will. Isn't that right, Lily?"

"He's right," Lily said slowly, "it must be done."

"Did _you_ just say Prongs was right?" Sirius said, frowning oddly at Lily. "Have I actually woken up this morning?"

They had arrived in the Great Hall for lunch. Lily, who had been steadfastly ignoring Sirius once again grasped the Head Boy's arm and dragged him to their house table, parking him in an empty seat and sitting down beside him. James, by the look on his face, did not seem to mind in the slightest.

Amelia and the rest of the Marauders hurriedly assembled themselves around Lily and James, their curiosity evident about what Lily was planning to do next.

"Scroll," Lily asked, holding her hand out for James's notes. He obediently handed over his lesson's work. "Spoon," Lily said to Amelia, who passed her a large wooden spoon immediately. With a no-nonsense straightforwardness, Lily spooned out curry onto James's plate, then rice, opened the scroll of his tall, upright scrawl and said, "I'm sorry, Potter, we have no time to lose. Just eat and listen while explain some of this."

"Oh, she's persistent," commented Remus admiringly.

"You have no idea," replied Amelia, passing him the bread.

"So here you've written down '_Relevance of Alarm Charms to 1666_'. Now what happened in 1666?" asked Lily, stabbing an onion bahji with her fork.

Apart from the chewing of food, James's face was blank.

"England thrashed Japan three hundred and ninety to nothing in the final Quidditch World cup?" Sirius suggested.

"Oh! Thaserielle du Maravi, sorceress of Hungary was caught in bed with the sister's husband, causing an uprising among the people?" Amelia asked.

"No! No!" Lily waved their guesses away with a chutney spoon, "it's to do with Muggles!"

"Oh, I know!" James said suddenly. "It was that bloke whose wand started sparking in that bakery and began the Great Fire of London!"

"Exactly!" smiled Lily. "In that year the Alarm Charm was developed to put in the very first magical smoke detectors, although it was a good three hundred years before any muggle ones were produced. Now, moving on, when Professor Flitwick said tax calculation charms were the bane of his existence, he didn't actually _mean_ tax calculation charms were the bane of his existence. They are very useful in many ways. For example . . ."

It was only when lunch was over and Lily had yet again lead James off to their next lesson by the arm that the Head Bow realised something amazing was happening.

"Lily," he said, "something amazing is happening."

"If you're talking about all the people whispering about the fact that we have not been apart since breakfast, then don't worry James, it's weird for me too," Lily told him as they made their way through the crowds of students, the vast majority of who turned to stare at them as they passed.

"No, no, I'm not talking about that," James dismissed, "although you're right; that _is _a bit strange . . . but no, that's not it. The weird thing is that everything you told me just now, at lunch . . . well, I can remember it!"

"Congratulations, Potter," Lily said dryly, "but somehow I don't think recalling what someone told you less than half an hour ago is that much of a marvellous achievement, to tell you the truth."

"No, Lily, you don't understand," said James as they joined the queue outside their History of Magic classroom. "Normally I'm quite good at remembering things when people tell them to me, if these things have anything to with people, Quidditch, practical jokes or anything else. Now when it comes to people telling me about Charms, Transfiguration, or anything school related, it just goes in through one ear and out the other. In fact, I doesn't even enter the first ear, it just hangs around outside for a bit and then decides to go home.

"But when _you _told me all those things about Charms, it was like all those things were fighting each other out of the way to get into my brain. I can remember everything you said. It's actually staying in there, Lily!"

Lily looked at his smiling face for a moment, then she leaned back against the corridor wall and raised her head in judgement, her books hugged to her chest.

"What was the Alarm Charm developed for?" she fired at him.

"Smoke detectors," James replied instantly.

"What is the wand movement for the tax calculation charm for an individual tax-payer and how does it differ from that of a small business?"

"Clockwise loop vs. anticlockwise loop."

"What would you do in the face of a charging Hippogriff?"

"Confoundus Charm, Immobilising Charm, apparation."

Lily hummed in an impressed tone. "Why, I believe you are right, Potter," she said, surprised, "stuff I say _does_ stay in there."

"I know," James said, raising his eyebrows in solidarity of her amazement.

"Ready for the second round?" Lily asked, as the doors to the classroom swung open and students began to wonder in.

"Only if you save me a place next to you," James replied.

* * *

Unfortunately, despite Lily having saved him a place next to her, James found that History of Magic made even less sense to him than Charms. Professor Binns and his monotone didn't help matters either and James found that writing down everything someone said was a lot harder when the manner in which it was delivered was decidedly uninspiring.

When he and the rest of the students stumbled out into the light and fresh air two hours later, James was quickly found by Sirius, who snatched his notes out of his hand and held them at arm's length.

"So this is what I've been missing out on all these years," he said. "You know, when you see it written down like this, it looks sort of vaguely interesting."

"What are you going to do now?" Amelia asked.

"He's going to take a well-earned break, that's what he's going to do," Sirius answered.

"Yes Prongs," Remus added, glancing downwards, "and perhaps you should see the school nurse about the way you**r** hand keeps twitching."

"Absolutely not!" exclaimed Lily, snatching the Head Boy's notes back from Sirius. "We've no time to waste on silly matters like muscular health! We need to go over these topics as soon as magically possible!"

It was then perhaps lucky that James seemed to have accepted his fate wholeheartedly, though the small perk of being able to spend more time with Lily undoubtedly helped. Sirius was about to protest on his friend's behalf, when he noticed (quite insightfully for him) that a smile of dutiful pleasure appeared to have taken a permanent residence on James's face.

"Well then," Amelia said brightly, quite keen to get things moving along, "are you coming up to the Common Room?"

"No," Lily murmured, as though thinking to herself, "we'll never get anything done there. And we can't go to the library because we won't be able to talk. All the classrooms are full of clubs and societies until after six . . . _Why _can't you get a quiet place with a desk in it in this school?"

"Maybe Hagrid will let you use his hut?" suggested Sirius.

"Hey! I know!" James said suddenly, and Lily realised that he had not spoken in the last ten minutes. He seized her by the hand and said "Come with me."

"Have a nice time!" Amelia shouted cheerfully, as James led Lily down the corridor. Just before they turned the corner, Lily twisted round and threw her friend a resentful look.

"Where are we going?" asked Lily impatiently as they walked briskly past groups of students who weren't tactful about their staring. "Do you know if there's somewhere free now?"

"Yep," nodded James pleasantly, "I guarantee it'll be quiet, empty, full of book**s** and study-friendly in all other ways you can think of."

"Oh, good," Lily replied, looking at the stone slabs under her feet. "I'm glad to see you're being very cooperative about this, Potter."

"Well, how can I not be?" asked James. "I'd like to pass my exams, if it's all right by you."

Suddenly, as they were coming to the end of a corridor, James spun around and began walking in the exact opposite direction. Lily, stopped for a moment in confusion, then guessing that they had taken a wrong turn, followed.

"I mean," James continued as she caught up, "I said I was going to do everything in my power to pass my NEWTs, so here I am . . . doing everything in my power." Lily had just opened her mouth to admit that this was very commendable, when James turned on his heel and started off down the other way down the corridor.

"Forgotten the way?" she asked instead. _Bloody Typical,_ she thought,_ he doesn't want to work after all._

"Nope," James replied over his shoulder and carried on walking. Lily jogged after him, but a few moments later found him walking back in her direction.

"OK, _stop!_" she demanded. "Potter, what are you doing dragging us up and down the same stretch of corridor?"

"Looking for this," he replied calmly, pointing to the right. Lily turned her head and gave a start. In the wall, right beside her was a door that had definitely not been there three seconds previous. James was grinning at her.

"Let me guess," he said, "you've never noticed this door before."

"Instead of standing there all smug," Lily replied (quite patiently in her opinion), "you could make yourself useful and explain."

"We found it a few months ago," James began. "As you might imagine, wondering down the corridors of Hogwarts at four in the morning, carrying two large crates of Ukrainian firecrackers isn't the most sensible thing to be doing . . . particularly if Mrs Norris very kindly meets you at the end of the corridor."

"Aha," Lily said lightly, having a hard time keeping the amusement from her voice.

"So, there we are, trying to outrun the caretaker and his cat, carrying things that he would love to relieve us of. To put it politely, we were buggered, or so we thought. Out of nowhere, this door appears and by that point, we were pretty much past caring what was behind it.

"Anyway, we go in and you'll never guess what was in the room."

"You're right, I won't."

"A large table, a trolley, four mugs of Earl Grey and a crowbar to open the crates with."

Lily glanced from James to the door and back again.

"So what you're saying is: you need a room, and this door just comes to your aid?"

"Yep," nodded James proudly, "whether you need to study, or stash your ill-gotten goods, all you have to do is think about how much you need a place to do it."

Lily looked as though she didn't know what to make of it all. Obviously, she had not expected him to be this helpful in her endeavour to drill some information into his head, but suddenly; he was making it all happen.

James thought he'd better get things moving or else they'd be standing there all night. He reached over, grasped the doorknob and pushed the door open.

"After you," he said.

* * *

_Thank you very much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and to Georgia, my lovely beta. _


	3. Revolutionary Theory

**Three – Revolutionary Theory**

Lily had the experience of inhabiting a magical castle for the good part of seven years, but even so, the contents of the room she had just stepped into were surprising.

The room contained everything you could possibly need to cram an entire year's syllabus into your brain during one evening. There was a comforting, fluffy green carpet on the floor, and on the right of the room were two bean bags near the window. The bookshelves lining two walls were filled with reference books on history, on the walls hung helpful posters with moving diagrams of famous battles and world maps whose colours were constantly shifting through time to show the various empires and invasions taking place. The candles dotted about had a calming, studious green hue to their light and in the middle of the room, there was a large wooden desk with two chairs and a great deal of drawers. On the desk sat a dozen bottles of ink all lined up in different colours, a jar containing spare quills, a pot of warm tea, two mugs and a plate of biscuits.

As James closed the door behind them, Lily smiled and wondered slowly over the desk, looking around curiously. Opening one of the drawers in the desk, she found every possible type of parchment and every item of stationary a student could ever need. She wanted to take off her shoes and feel the soft carpet under her feet. It would also be nice to pull one of those books off the shelf and collapse into a bean bag with it . . .

_Sadly I can't_, she thought, _there's work to do._

James on the other hand, had already dumped his bag on the floor, kicked off his shoes and collapsed into one of the bean bags. He smiled at her.

"Good, eh?"

"Well, you weren't wrong," Lily said fingering the smooth, rich red surface of the table admiringly. "This place is kitted out, isn't it?"

"Told you it would be."

As astounding as the room was, Lily couldn't help being amazed by something else; the fact that James had brought her there. Just because they needed a quite place to work for a while, he had shown her a most remarkable place that only he and his friends knew about. He'd let her in on this big secret.

She blinked.

"Anyway," she said, swinging her bag up onto the desk, "we should get going. We haven't got all year. Where are your notes?"

She and James sat themselves in the chairs at the desk. There followed a good two minutes of parchment-shuffling, dipping of quills in ink, pouring of tea and eating of biscuits that must proceed any actual work.

"Right," James said after a while through a custard-cream. He tapped the scroll of parchment full of his rushed handwriting. "I reckon some of this needs explaining."

"OK," said Lily, pulling the notes towards her. She stared at them for a moment. "OK," she said again, and then, "OK."

"Is that all I have to write in the exam?" James asked. "OK?" It was meant to be a joke, but Lily didn't seem to think it funny.

"Well, it seems to me that you certainly have not been paying attention this year at all," she said despairingly. She planted her elbow on the desk and put her forehead in her hand, lifting up the first page of notes to peer at the next. "I was just trying to work out where to begin."

James sighed, taking off his glasses and cleaning the lenses on his school shirt. Already things were not going as well as he'd hoped.

"OK," Lily started again. "Let's begin with: a brief history of Russia."

"Right," James said, steeling himself with a quill and a fresh piece of parchment.

"1900," Lily said, "Russia is divided into twenty states with a population of half a billion (not including the muggles). The whole place is (for once) ruled by someone intelligent. Her name is Amelia Trink and she has been in power since 1879. Basically, this is about the only time is history when things are not bad. Nobody's getting exploited, tortured or put to death. There are no plagues, wand-shortages or political corruption. Things are fine and witches and wizards living in twentieth century Russia could be agreed with in thinking they were living in the most forward-thinking and tolerant society there was."

"Let me guess, then it all goes wrong," James said.

"Yep," smiled Lily, "1917 to be exact."

"What happened then?"

"The muggles had a revolution. Except, in exams, you always have to call them 'non-magic peoples', or the examiners get shirty."

"Right," nodded James.

"Anyway, this one of the few times in history when the muggles have had a direct effect on us. Amelia Trink had always had a nice, companionable relationship with the old Tsar, but Lenin was a bit of a different story. You know, he was all for freedom of information, and unveiling conspiracy and everything to all men. What do you think this meant for Russian witches and wizards?"

"They . . . er . . . had to hide themselves even better?" James tried, although, personally he thought it was a bit of a lame answer.

"Exactly!" Lily said, and all of a sudden, James was heartened. "They no longer had the help of the muggle leader to stay hidden. What do you need to stay hidden?"

"Money," said James, remembering that the first argument muggle-magic integration activists had always put forward was that it would be a lot easier on the average wizard's pocket if he didn't have to hide himself from the muggles. "I mean, taxes," he added.

"Yep," Lily nodded, and James was surprised to find himself going a bit pink with pride. "So, basically, this is the chain of events: economy goes down the drain, people get a bit irritated and wonder if the muggles had the right idea about Communism, the minister of finance gets assassinated, Amelia Trink escapes to Paris after being ambushed in her palace. She dies there in 1952."

"What happen to the Russians?" asked James.

"Well they have thirty-seven changes of government over the next twenty-three years, all of which are weak, ineffective and corrupt. None of them could rule effectively, even though the muggles had a new dictator. Stalin was a lot nicer to us, although a lot nastier to the muggles."

"Stalin? What happened to Lenin?"

"Oh, he had three strokes and died in 1924, but you don't need to know that," Lily said, turning back to James's notes and pulling out a fresh piece of parchment.

James rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

"Wow, you certainly know a lot about history," he said, without really thinking. Lily glanced at him and unscrewed the top off a red ink bottle.

"Well . . . there's a lot of it to know, James," she said with a wry smile. "Now, they like to ask questions about the ambush at the palace so let's go through it stage by stage."

Lily pushed the bottle of ink towards James and riffled through her notes until she found the right sheet of parchment. She unfolded it several times, and spread it out in front of him.

There was a title at the top. James read '_The Imperial_ _Palace_ _of Russia. Built: 1638.'_ Underneath was a detailed architectural plan which reminded James faintly of the Marauder's Map. Tiny dots in many different colours were moving and shifting about all over the place.

"There's a key at the top," Lily said. "Green dots for guards, yellow dots for figures of government, black dots for house-elves and staff, orange dots for esteemed guests and purple for the empress."

"Hey, there she is," James said, pointing to a purple dot surrounded by six or seven orange dots in a room marked '_Twelfth-floor Parlour_'.

"Right," Lily said, "so on the 16th of March 1922 at precisely quarter past ten at night, a political terrorist organisation called _The People's Wand _stages this ambush. Now here's a challenge for you, Potter. You have to work out, using this map, how you would get _The People's Wand _from outside the Palace to where the Empress is without arousing suspicion and being arrested."

"Wow," James grinned, picking up a quill and dipping it the red ink. "How cool is this? I get to overthrow a government! I'm telling you, if we had done this in class . . . "Right, so the first I'd do is split up and enter from different weak points. I'll get fifteen people to go in from this cellar . . . Hold on, how of them were there? Sixty? Seventy?"

"Twelve," Lily replied serenely, taking a biscuit.

"Oh," James said, looking down the map again, "better make that two, then. Three can go in through this door, because that one guard won't put up much of a fight, then they can make for those stairs . . ."

Lily watched him while he scribbled over the map, drawing lines snaking through corridors and up staircases, avoiding guards and muttering to himself about the odds of wand to wand combat. As she chewed on her chocolate biscuit, she thought that perhaps this whole business wasn't going to be so troublesome after all. He did seem to be keen on doing everything she said. Not only that but he actually seemed _interested_. And for all his appalling marks and bad attitude towards learning in a classroom, Lily knew that James Potter was not unintelligent.

"OK," James said a few moments later, "I reckon I've got most of them in. I had to expand a few for diversions and things like that."

Lily picked up the map and studied it.

"So you've got seven revolutionaries into the room with the Empress."

"All right, so not _most_ of them, but . . ."

"You've done better than the _real_ thing," Lily said.

"Have I?"

"Yes, only four of _The People's Wand_ made it to the twelfth floor, and one of them was put out of action as soon as he entered the room because one of the Empress's esteemed guests poked him in the eye with her fan."

"And she still runs off to Paris?"

"Well, when you consider that a killing curse flew two inches to the right of her shoulder, she might be excused for abdicating."

"True."

"Now, you also have to know about the importance of the Palace layout, which shows how lucky _The People's Wand_ were to get in at all," Lily said. "The first point is this."

She then did something quite odd. James raised an eyebrow as Lily pushed back her chair, took her shoes off, stood on it, and then climbed up onto the desk, careful to stand a bit back (being quite aware that her skirt was not very long).

"Imagine I'm an Empress," she said.

"Trust me, it's not hard," James grinned and Lily pulled a face.

"This is my castle or palace or stronghold, whatever you will," she continued, "and you are someone trying to overthrow me. Who's at an advantage now, me or you?"

"Well, you 'cause you're higher up," James reasoned.

"Exactly," said Lily, sitting down on the desk, "and just for saying that, you get about three marks. Hold on, let me find the mark scheme . . ."

James leaned back in his chair as she searched through her notes. He now found himself in a very strange situation. He had never been interested in history before. Even the bloodiest of wars that Professor Binns described would soon send him snoring. But here he was, taking an interest, asking questions, _wondering what would happen next_. He felt awful for ol' Empress Amelia, who got chucked off the throne and didn't deserve it. This whole history lark (when it was being taught by Lily) was just like a really long, exciting story.

"Do you know what you're going to do when you leave Hogwarts?" James asked, out of the blue. Lily stopped for a moment to give him a bit of an odd look.

"Not a clue," she said.

"Well, if old Binns ever retires, you'd have a sure shot at replacing him."

She gave a strange little laugh where she forced a breath out of her nose and averted her eyes. It was laugh that said 'If only I had time to have you committed to St Mungo's.' "I'm not joking!" James insisted. "Honestly, one day with you and I've learnt more than I have all year."

"They're not going to hire me right this minute!" Lily argued. "Besides, it's not as simple as tutoring. You need teaching qualifications and training and all sorts of other things . . ."

"I'm not sending in your application or anything," James said, raising his hands and shrugging. "I'm just saying, if you don't think of something you'd like to do more . . . you could do a lot worse."

"I'll keep it in mind," Lily said in a defeated tone. "Things to do when I'm dead, number one: teach History of Magic at Hogwarts." James chuckled, and Lily felt a pinch in her windpipe. That had never happened before. James had never laughed at anything she had said before. More importantly, she had never been inclined to say anything funny in his presence before.

She glanced at him, and then realised she was supposed to be looking for something. Oh, yes, mark scheme.

* * *

It was dark when the Head students finally emerged from the strange room a good six hours later. Neither of them had realised how late it was and they had spent two minutes hurriedly gathering up all their books, notes and quills which seemed to have spread out so far as to actually make the desk they were working at stretch to hold all their things.

On opening the door to the hallway, Lily and James had to light their wands. All the candles had been extinguished over an hour ago, when all the students were technically supposed to be in their common rooms.

"Let's hope we don't run into anyone," James whispered, closing the door carefully behind them.

"What happens if we run into someone?" Lily asked nervously.

"We get in trouble for being out after hours," James replied, trying to smile at the fact that Lily had probably never ventured out of the common room after nine.

"You would know," Lily quipped.

"Of course, haven't _you _ever broken curfew?" James teased.

"_I've _never been caught," Lily said through a smile. She began walking in what she hoped was the right direction to the Gryffindor Tower. The light of James's wand followed her so she supposed she must have been right. Of course, she didn't tell him that the reason she'd never been caught was that she had in fact, never been out after hours. Unfortunately it didn't stop him guessing.

"You've never been out after hours, have you?"

"Er, no."

Goodness, Lily thought, first making jokes, now engaging in light-hearted banter. What in magic had come over her?

Come to think of it, what had come over him? He was being decidedly nice and . . . unlike his usual annoying self. Or was this his usual self? Lily couldn't quite tell.

She decided to return to a safe place.

"OK, three questions" she whispered. "Name five consequences of the 1922 coup."

"Further decline in economy, unstable government, alienation from the muggles- I mean non-magic peoples, international condemnation and two wars with China."

"Who led _The People's Wand_ and what was his motto?"

"Boris Alkarevich used to say 'There is no such thing as a time to sit on our arses' (loosely translated)."

"What five things did Chekov the Benevolent's fourth government achieve for –**ah!**"

James got quite a shock Lily suddenly fell over, spilling her things on the thin red carpet.

"Lily?" he said, hurriedly kneeling down. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm all right," the Head Girl said, turning over and inspecting her knees. They looked a little pink from being grazed on the carpet. "I tripped on something." She began collecting her books and papers.

Just as James was going to help, he heard something, a low, disgruntled '_Rahow_'.

"_Oh, bugger_," he said.

"What?" asked Lily, picking up her wand. "_Lumos._"

The light threw the shadow of a small, scrawny cat, with a triumphant expression on its pointed face.

"Oh, no," whispered Lily, as though being quiet would help them escape the cat's notice. Mrs Norris hissed and yowled again and Lily was sure it would not be long before her owner was present.

"I bloody _hate_ it when she does that," James said, no longer seeing the point of whispering. He helped Lily up by the arms and seized her hand. "Here, this way! _Run!_"

Next moment Lily found herself sprinting full tilt behind the Head Boy. She could hear the soft drum of four legs behind them, although it seemed to be getting fainter. Panting, she tried to gauge how far they were from the Gryffindor Tower. If she remembered right, they weren't too far . . . they just might make it.

James was certainly holding her hand very tightly. It was quite nice, really, even if her fingers felt as though they were about to go numb. And this whole business was sort of exciting. Lily could easily imagine she and James were two members of a revolutionary underground sect, running from guards, on their way to assassinate an evil dictator. From what she had seen earlier that evening, James might certainly do a better job of it than _The People's Wand_.

A few moments later, they both got tired of running. Jogging to a stop, James rested his hands on his knees and set his bag on the ground for a moment.

"Reckon we lost her?" asked Lily, through her exhausted gasps.

"Think so, yeah." James smiled and swallowed, straightening up and swinging his bag onto his shoulder again. Lily noticed he had let go of her hand. "Anyway," he added, beginning to walk again, "it's not far now. The tower's just around this corner. **Argh!**"

Most young witches and wizards who attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry will say that nothing can prepare you for the sight of Filch, the ugly, menacing caretaker, suddenly rounding a corner on you. At that moment, James was thankful that the vast majority of Hogwarts students still possessed youth and a decent physical condition. Anyone over eighty might not have survived it.

"Well, this _is_ a nice little get-together, ain't it?" the caretaker said in his most gleeful, slimy manner. "I 'aven't seen you out at this late hour for a long time, Mr Potter, and now not only have I caught _you_ out of bounds, but the Head Girl as well! Looks like we're goin' up in the world, Mrs Norris."

His scraggy pet yowled from her spot between Filch's shoes and Lily jumped, understandably unnerved.

"Look, Mr Filch," James said as smoothly as he could. "We were just working (exams, you know) and we lost track of the time. We weren't up to anything, honest. We wouldn't . . . I mean, Lily's not the type to . . ."

"Ooh, no, you're not getting around me so easy," Flich smiled a large toothy grin and curled a finger upwards. "'Ow was I to know what you were doin'? I wouldn't trust the pair of yer as far as anything. You bloody students, you're all the same. This school would be better off without you."

"But, Mr Filch," Lily began, "you can ask Professor Dumbledore, he-"

"I reckon I can just about get you both a detention," Filch interrupted, rubbing his stubbly chin, "without bein' able to prove anything. Now get back to where you should be, I'll be seein' yer again very soon. C'mon, Mrs Norris."

Lily and James watched as the caretaker and his loathsome cat wondered off.

"Fabulous," Lily muttered sarcastically, as soon as all traces of Filch's lamp had vanished, "detention means a whole evening wasted."

"Come on, it's not too bad," James said, hitching the strap of his bag further up his shoulder. "I've done a lot of detentions and they're usually something menial. We could probably do some work at the same time."

Lily only sighed and started back on the way to the Gryffindor Tower.

"Plus," James added, as he walked beside her, "it's your first detention. Congratulations! I always said, no one should go through seven year of school and not get caught for something. It just completes the educational experience, know what I mean?"

Lily laughed a little, and as they clambered through the portrait hole after waking up a very irritated Fat Lady, she thought that if she had to serve detention with anyone, it might as well be James.

* * *

_Thanks very much to everyone who reviewed. Love to fab-beta--type-person-Georgia._


	4. Getting Off Topic

**Four – Getting Off Topic**

When she arrived at the top of the girls' staircase, Lily checked her watch. It was that bit of the evening when all the girls were getting ready for bed, popping in and out of each other's dorm rooms to have a last minute chat and say goodnight, queuing up for the bathrooms armed with toothbrushes and _Lady Perm's Cushion-Feel Night-Wear Curlers_, or frantically asking their friends if they could copy a forgotten piece of homework.

Going into her own room, Lily made straight for her bed, dumped her bag on the floor and rubbed her eyes. _Merlin, she was tired_.

"Well? Aren't you going to tell me all about it?" a voice asked, startling the Head Girl.

"Oh," Lily said absently. She turned to her best friend who had just entered the room behind her, wearing pyjamas.

"Come on!" Amelia egged her, going over to sit cross-legged on her bed. "I'm paralysed with anticipation! Did you manage to get through his 'brick-thick skull'?" Lily sat down at the foot of the mattress and leaned her head against the bed post.

"You know, I reckon I did get through his 'brick-thick skull', as you put it," she said with a small smile.

"Actually, as _you_ put it," Amelia corrected, "many-a-time, when you two weren't on as good terms as you are now."

"We are _not _on good terms," said Lily emphatically, and Amelia made a snort of disbelief in the back of her throat. "We are on _better_ terms, but we are _not_ on good terms." Amelia only grinned, and Lily rolled her eyes, far too tired to argue her case.

"Did you just get in?" Amelia asked slyly, as if in this short phrase, she was proving her point. Lily gave a soft groan and sifted her feet up onto the bed.

"You won't believe . . ." she began, and then, not bothering to form grammatically correct or coherent sentences, she said, "just lost track, you know? Then there was that bloody cat, ambushed by that horrid caretaker . . . Basically, I'm in detention tomorrow night."

Amelia burst in laughter. Lily giggled a bit too. _At least someone finds it funny_, she thought.

"You must be rubbing off on each other," Amelia said. "I mean, first James stars learning stuff, now you're in detention! I reckon next thing you know, you'll be setting off fireworks in the staff toilets and he'll be the one who gets you suspended for it."

Lily couldn't stop herself laughing. Instead, she seized a pillow and whacked Amelia round the head.

"Go to bed," she said, "lack of sleep is making you spout more rubbish than usual." She got up and retrieved her own pyjamas from her pillow.

"Goodnight, Professor Evans!" Amelia sang in a sing-song voice as Lily closed the bathroom door behind her.

* * *

The following day, just before their last lesson, Lily and James were entering the Transfiguration classroom when a smart school owl found them and delivered a note. The note informed them rather curtly that their detention was to take place straight after the dinner in the Great Hall.

"Well, there we are then," James said resignedly, handing the note to Lily and taking a seat at the front of the classroom.

"What's all this?" asked Sirius, peering over the Head Girl's shoulder. "Detention, eh? Wouldn't have expected it from _you_, Lily."

"Is that true?" Peter asked, sliding into the seat behind James. Last lesson the Marauders had learnt that Lily had expressly forbidden any of them from sitting next to him.

"Didn't you hear?" said Remus, setting his bag down on the next desk, "they got in very late last night and it didn't escape Filch's notice."

"Now our own Head Girl is in detention!" Sirius declared almost gleefully.

"It's not just me," Lily told him hotly, "it's Potter as . . ."

She trailed off as Professor McGonagall appeared, bustling her way up to the front desk. Lily watched the transfiguration teacher put her things down, and then pushed her lips together in determination.

"Professor!" she called, scurrying up to the tall woman. As the students drifted into their seats and sorted their things out, James struggled to subtly eavesdrop on Lily's conversation, but failed to hear anything clearly. After a discussion that lasted around ten seconds, Lily sighed, folding the note and making her way back to her seat.

"No luck?" James asked, as though he had not expected anything else. Lily made a noise that indicated she was decidedly fed up.

"Something about 'working within school rules' and 'not taking liberties'," she muttered, slamming her book down the desk and flicking roughly through the pages. "She wouldn't even let me reschedule this bloody detention until after the exams. I don't know whose side she's on!"

Professor McGonagall called for quiet and began with a short speech along the lines of 'This is the last week before the exams; if you don't work hard you will fail'. This type of speech was becoming something of a standard among the teachers and James's mind wondered as he took his things out of his bag.

The destination of his wondering mind happened to be the last sentence Lily had muttered. It seemed to imply that this whole business of trying to pass his NEWTs was a contest or a battle of some sort. It also implied that he and Lily were on the same side . . . sort of.

It was odd. Before now, he had had the impression that he and Lily were against each other because he was always asking to take her out and she was . . . rather less than willing to agree.

But now they were united in a common cause against those most dreadful of things: exams.

It was a comforting thought.

Or at least, comforting enough to get him through two and a half hours of Transfiguration theory.

* * *

At eight o'clock, the Head Boy and Girl were required to take leave of their friends. Amelia, Sirius, Remus and Peter, left the Great Hall along with the last stragglers from dinner, the students returning to their Common Rooms.

At last the hall was empty apart from the Head Students. James sat down on the end of one of the house tables and watched the food and plates slowly melt away, leaving the surfaces clean and polished as ever.

"So, er . . ." Lily began, wondering around the corner of the table and tapping the wood absently with her fingers, "what do you think they'll make us do this evening? It won't be anything . . . dangerous, will it?"

"Well, I dunno," said James cryptically, trying not to smile at her apprehension. "I was once made to clean the roof tiles on the Owlery, top of the West Tower, you know? Drop of about a thousand feet."

"Oh, my gosh!" cried Lily, her hand flying to her mouth. James laughed.

"It's all right, I'm only pulling your leg," he told her, and Lily gave the sigh and shake of the head of people who know they've been had. "It'll probably be something like stamping documents or . . ."

He was interrupted by the doors banging open to let in Filch. The caretaker was dragging what looked like two brooms behind him, except that instead of twigs, they had a long strip of stiff rubber stuck perpendicular to the end. For once, Filch was not accompanied by his cat, but by Professor Flitwick.

The caretaker was silent as he approached the Head Students, but the Charms professor was as talkative as ever.

"Evening, evening," he said cheerfully, apparently not at all perturbed that his best student was serving detention less than a week before the exam. "Mr Potter, I'll have to ask you to stand, please."

James stood up, and quick as wink, Flitwick made the house tables vanish with and flick of his wand.

"Much obliged," Filch muttered.

"Right-o," Flitwick nodded. "A pleasant evening to all of you, then. See you two tomorrow, bright and early!" he said to Lily and James, then left.

"Now," Filch said, "ol' McGonagall has been to see me and made me give ya the easiest, softest, most yellow-bellied job in the history of detention. So, take these, quick now!" He thrust the poles at Lily and James. "These are brushes for topping up the scratch resistant charms on the stonework. The stuff comes out automatically so you don't even have to mop it on. _Bloody pansy job . . ._"

Lily glanced at James. He looked at though he was trying not to laugh.

"Once you've put it down," Filch continued, "don't touch it! Now, I'll be having your wands, if you don't mind. Can't have ya magicking it all and then dossing off now, can we?"

"But we wouldn't, Mr Filch, you can trust us," Lily tried, not too keen on parting with her wand.

"Oh, no you don't," Filch snarled. "You seventh years are the worst. Know all sorts of stuff, you do. C'mon, hand 'em over! You can pick 'em up from my office tomorrow morning." After he had tucked their wands away inside his jacket, Filch said, "Now, mind you do it properly! I want an even spread of anti-scratch charm on this floor!" He squinted at them threateningly through one eye. "Right, I'll be off, then."

James leaned on his brush and watched the caretaker exit the hall. "Looks like we got lucky then," he said, turning to Lily. "Swabbing the deck doesn't take much brainpower; you can still test me on the seventy-five uses of fairy spit, or whatever it is we learnt today."

"Twenty uses of pixie blood," Lily said distractedly. "Sorry, I didn't quite understand, how are we supposed to do what . . . we're supposed to do?"

"I reckon you just set the thing on the floor," James guessed, put the rubber end of his mop into the flagstones, "and . . . paint." He dragged the mop sideways and made a thick, viscous magic spread over the floor in a violent pink colour, like the trail of soap left by window cleaners on a pane of glass. The surface of the substance was oily and swirled with light pink, glinting in the shine of the candles.

"Filch was right," remarked James gleefully, "this has got to be the easiest detention in the history of Hogwarts! Right, you start in that corner, I'll start in this one and we'll work our way to the other end, all right?"

"Don't think you're getting off that easily," warned Lily. "I want six reasons why the water-jet charm is more effective and more practical than the liquid pump charm. Go."

Instead of answering straight away, James began to spread the thick pink goo into the floor from the corner of the hall. "Erm" he said, "sorry, I don't know."

Lily sighed. All six reasons had been mentioned by Professor Fltiwick last lesson. "So what are you going to write if you get asked that question in the exam, James?"

"Well, unless you tell me the answer, I'll have to write 'Sorry, I don't know'," he shrugged, turning his head up from the floor to look at her.

"Yeah, great," Lily replied ruefully. She put on a low, authoritative, stern voice that she imagined to universally represent all the examiners in the world. "_Explain six reasons why the water-jet charm is more effective and more practical than the liquid pump charm_." She leaned on her charming brush and shrugged in imitation of James. "'Sorry, I dunno.'"

"Wow," said James wistfully. "If only you could get full marks just for being honest like that. '_What was the most significant historical event for Merpeople during the 1800s?_'" he asked in a curt, demanding voice. "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue."

"I don't think they're likely to be very impressed with that," Lily said, taking her brush in both hands and continuing to mop the floor with magic.

"No," agreed James. "You'd better tell me six reasons why the water-jet charm is more effective and practical than the liquid pump charm, then."

They worked steadily up the Great Hall floor, while Lily asked James every possible question she could think of about their lessons that day. The painting of the floor was dull work, and Lily was almost thankful to have something to talk about. It also took her mind off the strange smell that seemed to be rising from the pink magic. It wasn't unpleasant, but simply . . . odd.

It might have been because the Head students were concentrating on something entirely other than their detention that they didn't notice for a long time the sticky situation they had gotten themselves into. They were about two thirds of the way up the Great Hall floor when they realised. It hit them both almost at the same time. They suddenly stopped mopping and their conversation fizzled out into silence.

They looked at each other in panic. Then they looked at the twenty feet of floor before them, glistening with questionable liquid magic.

All the doors were down the other end.

Lily gave a noise that was half way between a laugh and a sigh.

"You can't be serious," she declared, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and shaking her head. Beside her, James began to laugh. He started off quietly, then louder and more unrestrained until he was positively howling with hilarity.

"Oh, this just _takes the piss_," he said, leaning one arm on his mop and surveying the vast expanse of un-crossable floor before them.

_Unbelievable,_ Lily thought, _here we are, trapped by our own stupidity and the twat is laughing his head off._

However, looking at the situation objectively did make her want to giggle a bit. She supposed that that was what James was good at really, looking at things objectively.

"I hope you know, this is entirely your fault," James told her.

"What?" demanded Lily, even thought she was sharp enough to realise he was teasing her.

"Well, _I_ am routinely thoughtless and irresponsible. What's _your_ excuse?" Lily laughed quietly.

"I don't have one," she said, "and what's more, I can't see a way out of this mess."

"Yeah, and Filch has got our wands an' all," James added. There was a moment of silence as they both pondered what could be done. James was beginning to suspect that they would have to sit it out. He certainly didn't fancy wading through that strange-smelling liquid, and Lily wasn't looking so inclined either.

He looked at her with a defeated expression.

"So, how long does this stuff take to dry?"

About an hour later, Lily and James were sat on an island of clean floor in the corner of the room with their mops leaning against the wall. They had decided to cover as much of the floor with scratch-resistance charm (since Filch's threats rang fresh in their ears) leaving themselves about four square feet in which to sit and wait for the magic to dry.

After an entire evening discussing school work and exam curricula, Lily and James were finding it increasingly hard to stay on topic. The conversation kept leaking out into subjects that had nothing to do with NEWTs and Lily was finding that her desire to drag herself and James back to the topic of studying was fading fast.

She was finding that what she wanted more was just to sit and talk with James. It was nice that he seemed interested in things to do with the exams, but when they passed through those brief flecks of conversation about irrelevant things, she really wanted to just throw the NEWT revision scheme out of the window.

James was feeling much the same. As much as he wanted to pass his exams, he was _tired_. Two days of talking about nothing but NEWTs had made him sick of Charms, Transfiguration, History of Magic and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Moreover, he had long felt that even though he enjoyed talking to Lily, whenever they were discussing schoolwork, the conversation was inevitably one-sided. It was always her telling him things and him asking her things.

Then he would frequently wish he could tell her things as well. He wished she could ask him a few questions back, but these things he wanted to tell her about mostly had nothing to do with the exams, so he had to keep his mouth shut.

Lily was telling him about the economic world slump that had caused three major wars in the fourteenth century when his concentration began to fail.

". . . So, that's when the Prince Regent abdicated and you're bored, aren't you?" Lily said fluidly.

"Huh?" asked James, feeling a sudden disconnectedness.

"I said: you're bored, aren't you?" repeated Lily.

"No," James said quickly, "I'm just . . . bored, yeah, you're right."

Nodding knowingly, Lily leaned back against the wall and said, "Well, we've been at this for two days running, so I suppose you're allowed to be bored."

"What a relief," James nodded jokingly. "I thought you'd be harder on me, you know, cracking the whip and all that."

"Hey! I know what's it's like to be bored stiff by work!" Lily said defensively, but she was smiling.

"You? Bored by lessons? Never!" declared James. "At least not as bored as I get. You need both a will and an attention span of steel to last out History of Magic and I'm definitely lacking in those departments."

"Too right," Lily affirmed and James made a mildly offended face. He was far too tired to argue, though. "Well, you said it!"

There was a moment's pause in which Lily sighed and decided to make amends with a little confession.

"You know, sometimes I envy you," she told James, not really looking at him, but gazing off to the other end of the hall. The Head Boy frowned as he turned his head to watch her. "I often wonder what it would be like to be . . . 'lacking in the attention span department' as you put it. I wonder what it would be like to just . . . sit back and not be bothered, to think 'Oh, exams, they're not the end of the world. You only live once and there are better things to do with your time.'

"Sometimes I wonder if all this stress and aggravation is worth it." She sighed again. "At the end of the day . . . it probably isn't."

_Gosh_, James thought. _Lily Evans having doubts about academic achievement? _He'd never have put his money on that.

"Lily," he said, bending over, trying to look her in the eye. "If there wasn't any reason to put in so much effort, then you wouldn't do it. I mean, why _do_ you do it?"

"Cursed if I know," Lily shrugged. It was then that she noticed the aches in her shoulders. Swabbing an entire Great Hall was taking its toll on her and she could feel the drowsiness soaking into her head like spilt wine into a tablecloth.

"Because . . ." James tried to think of any good things that could possibly come from passing exams. It was a hard stretch of the imagination. "I suppose you like to be prepared. You're not content to just sit back and take the chance that it will all work out in the end. This way, you're going to be set up for the rest of your life, aren't you? Good job, sure money . . . Better to be safe than sorry, isn't it? You're spending all the 'stress and aggravation' now, so you don't have to bother about it later on."

"Wow, _The_ _Merits of Passing Exams_, by James Potter. It must have taken a lot of brain power to think of that. Well done."

"Are you convinced?"

"I am."

"Good, because if you start slaking off, where would that get me?"

Lily breathed a laugh. She was too tired to do anything else, except perhaps close her eyes. She wasn't going to go to sleep; she was just going to rest. Yes, that was it.

James watched as the Head Girl gradually nodded off. Her head drooped precariously and he had to quickly shuffle closer so she could lean on his shoulder and not get a crick in her neck. Surveying the expanse of shimmering pink gloop around them, James reckoned that the magic was just starting to dry, slowly turning invisible.

He'd wake her up when their way was clear, he thought, but he was having a bit of trouble staying awake himself. Lily's soft, regular breathing on his shoulder was having a soothing effect on him and it wasn't long before his own eyes closed and sleep crept gently into mind.


	5. The Exam Brigade

**Five – The Exam Brigade**

The first thing Lily became aware of upon waking up was the colour yellow. Then she realised that she hadn't yet opened her eyes and that it was the sunlight shining in her face. The next thing she became aware of was the fact that all her limbs seemed to have gone numb from the waist downwards. Killing two birds with one stone, Lily opened her eyes and discovered that the reason for the loss of feeling in her legs was that she was propped up against the wall of the Great Hall like a rag doll. The next task was to remember why she was there in the first place.

Oh, right. Detention.

At some point during the night, the four house tables had appeared, ready and waiting for that day's breakfast. The sunlight glinted off the gold cutlery.

With tremendous effort, Lily raised an arm to look at her watch and jumped. Making a hasty grab at the nearby mop she had left nerby the previous night, she hauled herself up in a rather ungainly manner, leaning against the wall until her legs decided to feel vaguely normal again.

Unfortunately, this left James Potter without anything to lean on and the sudden movements of the Head Girl made him tip over and wake up with a start.

"What?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. His glasses were hanging lopsidedly from one ear and he tried to adjust them as he looked around.

"James!" Lily hissed, "We have to go! Now!" He just sat there, rubbing his eyes for a few moments, so she decided to give him a light kick in the knee.

"Eh? Why?" he asked.

"Because it's half past six and in half an hour, all those first years who are too keen for their own good will be queuing up outside the doors to get in and get the best pieces of toast!"

"That sounds nice," James mused from the floor. "A piece of toast would set me up for the next few hours."

Lily was fast picking up on the fact the James was not at his best at this hour of the day.

"How lovely for you," she said impatiently, bending down to grab his arm and pull, "but before we get ourselves some toast, I think we should at least get back to the Gryffindor Tower for a change of clothes, wouldn't you agree?"

Nodding slightly, James allowed her to haul him up and followed her towards the door. _What a relief_, Lily thought. If she and the Head Boy had been discovered snoring in heap among mops in the early hours, she did not think she would have ever lived it down.

"I suppose I forgot to wake up last night," he said while they were wrenching open the doors.

"What?"

"Nothing."

After a detour via Filch's office (to pick up wands in his custody), the Head Students did their very best to sneak into the Gryffindor Tower without anyone noticing.

With seven years of sneaking around Hogwarts under his belt, James was doing an excellent job. He knew all the creaky stairs to avoid on the boys' staircase. He winked at all the portraits he wanted to stay quiet. He stayed clear of all the suits of armour that would collapse if they were so much as breathed on. Unfortunately he shared all this experience with his four best friends, so when he crept into the seventh year dormitory early that morning, he barely had time to remove his tie before Remus was sitting up and smiling knowingly.

James thought that if there was one annoying thing about Remus Lupin, it was that smug, knowing smile of his.

"It's not what you think," he said flatly, as if he was an ice cream vendor telling the two hundredth child that he'd run out of chocolate chip. "Actually," he said, "it probably is what you think. It's _not_ what Padfoot would think."

"So I also assume that it's not what you'd like to think," Remus suggested, "and also not what Lily would prefer you not to like to think."

From opposite sides of the room, they blinked at each other.

"You know, I've come to realise that this kind of innuendo and social analysis is best left to girls," Remus said.

"Yep," James nodded. "Quite right."

"Social analysis of what?" asked Sirius, and James had not even realised he was awake. In his mind, he acknowledged that when it came to stealth, he was truly in the presence of the master. "You should answer carefully," Sirius continued, "considering you have been out all night with someone you fancy . . . a lot."

"Apparently, it's not what you'd like to think," Remus told him.

"So what is it really?" asked Peter, sitting up groggily.

"We started at the wrong end of the floor and fell asleep waiting for the varnish to dry," James said, as if it explained everything.

"And did you get the blame for it all?" Peter asked.

"No," said James lightly, beginning to undress. "That doesn't happen so much anymore, actually."

"Anyway," Sirius said, throwing off his quilt and getting up. "While you were out on the town, Moony, Wormtail and I were brewing up a plan for one last offensive before the exams."

James made a non-committal noise.

Remus expounded. "We have noticed that Snivellus has been spending an unnatural amount of time in the library."

"Sometimes he even _sleeps_ there," Peter said, as though the thought of it was vulgar.

"And this means that the bathroom will be . . ." Sirius prompted.

"Unused?" James wrinkled his nose.

"Undefended!"

James smiled. "It's a good idea. I'll give you that. Sabotaging hygiene products. It's a classic."

"So are we on?" Remus asked, and his friend thought for a moment.

"I might have to bow out of this one," he said, opening the wardrobe. "No spare time, really. And Lily's a masterful vigilante. I doubt I'd get past her."

"You could if you wanted to," Peter argued.

"And I don't think you realise the significance of this," added Sirius. "Snape's the one who got you into this exams mess in the first place. If you hadn't had that run-in with him, Lily would never have had the chance to sign you up for the exam brigade."

"It's not all bad, being a member of the exam brigade."

"Only if she who signed you up is someone you're quite fond of, I would think," Remus said, and made a point of tidying up to save his friend the sight of his smirk.

"Besides," Sirius continued, "it's exams season, and the public need to be entertained now more than ever. We don't want this place to become dry and humourless. More importantly, we ourselves do not want to become dry and humourless."

"Are you saying that everyone who wants to pass their exams is boring?" James asked, more to avoid the question at hand than anything else.

"Last week, I would have said 'yes' without hesitation," Sirius replied. "But since my best friend decided to turn to the dark side, twist his wand the other way and become a traitor to the cause, I have had to rethink my policy."

"I'm glad your prejudices will never affect our friendship."

Towel in hand, James made for the bathroom. "We'll see how it goes," he said evasively and shut the door.

James had told Sirius that his extra curricular activities that evening had not been what Sirius thought they were. However, James himself barely had time to think about them at all. He barely had time to think about anything that he wasn't about to be examined on.

All day long he and Lily would work at it, and his daily actions were quickly becoming saturated with exam habits. He couldn't climb the thirty-two steps of the boys' staircase without reciting the thirty-two different dates of Mexican riots, one for each step. All around his dormitory, small scraps of parchment were glued to the walls and furniture with Transfiguration wand movements scrawled on them. James couldn't blow out the candles without reading 'twirl, twirl, poke' stuck to the candlestick. He couldn't plump his pillow without reading 'swish and flick' on the headboard. Brushing his teeth meant seeing 'clockwise loop vs. anticlockwise loop' on the mirror in front of him, although the ink on that one was beginning to run from bathroom condensation.

He was even beginning to replace Quidditch tactics with exam tactics. 'Hawkshead Attacking Formation' became 'horsehair, asbestos, fairy-dust', a mixture for treating the bite of a Vamperfish. To a life-long lover of Quidditch, this was a bit alarming. After the exams, James felt that he might go on some sort of Quidditch rehabilitation course. A month-long match would do the trick.

That Friday, it was the sunniest day of the year, which always seemed to come in the weeks before exams as some sort of cruel irony against stressed students. What could be more tempting that to abandon the books and take a running dove into the lake? James thought it was a grand idea. The water would probably be the perfect temperature, too shallow for the giant squid, smooth and glassy, waiting to be splashed . . .

"James, pay attention, please!"

"Sorry," he said, and shook his head. They had been walking along the south-facing corridor to the Room of Requirement and he had been gazing out of the windows with an expression as glassy at the surface of the lake. Everything Lily had been saying about the finer points of turning a python into a wicker basket had gone straight over his head. Now that he was paying attention again, it seemed Lily didn't want to continue. Instead, her gaze flicked out of the windows.

"We can go outside, if you want," she said, taking the strap of her bag into one hand. She suddenly seemed unsure of her footing, unused to doing anything except lecturing him.

"Can we?" James was surprised.

"Yes. I mean, it might help you concentrate. It will make a change from that room."

James agreed. The Room of Requirement was nice enough, but the sunshine was simply too tempting. They took a detour out of the front doors and started down the lawn. Once they found a flat bit of grass and some shade, they spread their books out and spent a good five hours there until dinner, in which James learnt an amount that Professor McGonagall had taken two weeks to teach everyone else.

As the sun began to set, their shadows lengthened across the lawn. The students picked up all their things and followed their rumbling stomachs towards the Great Hall.

It seemed that the five hours straight of teaching Transfiguration had taken it out of Lily, because she was quiet while they walked back to the castle. She wasn't even testing him about the things she had only just drilled into his head.

"Are you worried?" James asked her suddenly.

"About what?"

"All this," replied James, waving his arms in a sweeping motion, and Lily couldn't doubt that he was talking about exams, which had taken over their lives for the past five days.

"No," Lily said, then, "yes. I mean . . ." She took a breath. "I'm worried, but in a healthy way."

"I see," said James, wondering how exactly to be worried in a healthy way.

"I mean, I've done as much work as anybody else."

"More, I should say."

"And I think you will pass."

"Do you?" asked James with a small smile, as though she had just told him she liked his new haircut.

"Yes," Lily nodded at the ground. "You remember things. You can tell me why the Bulgarian government was overthrown in 1496, can't you?"

"The demand for their main export dried up. Quintaped fur was made illegal to trade."

"Exactly. I'm not worried. Besides, even if you weren't remembering things, I'm not the one who's going to fail the exams, so why should I be worried?"

Lily immediately regretted saying that.

"Yep, you're not the one who's going to retake another year at Hogwarts," James said, "while all your friends have gone on to better things."

Lily sighed silently, and couldn't think what on earth she was feeling. When she had laid out James's punished in Dumbledore's office, she hadn't really been in the best of moods with him. She hadn't even thought about it, really. If he failed his NEWTs, he would have to repeat his seventh year when everyone else would leave and go off to do their own thing. Remus, Sirius, Peter and all his other friends would be gone.

She couldn't think of anything worse.

A week ago she would have said: '_Oh, so he'll be on his own for a year. They can visit him. I'm not sending him into solitary confinement! Besides, he deserves it, and what difference does it make to me?_'

Now she realised that of course it would make a difference to her. She had spent the past _five days_ teaching him what he should have learnt in two years. They had spent nearly every waking moment together, and no one could do that without getting attached, just a little bit.

Every time he got frustrated, she got frustrated as well. Every time he answered her correctly, a spark of pleasure went off in her heart. Perhaps if he had been sulky and difficult about it all, she might have retained her detachedness, but Lily could tell that he really wanted to pass. She wasn't heartless; she was really very impressed with him. If he really did fail, that would be five days of mind-aching effort wasted. He had tried so hard and it would be such a shame.

Lily realised she would be very upset if he didn't succeed. She wanted to take it all back, apologise for giving him these ridiculous terms of punishment and call the whole thing off.

But that would make everything they have done over the past five days worthless.

Instead she said, "Oh, shush!" James looked up and Lily flapped an arm in his direction. "You'll pass. I'm sure you will. I'm contradicting everything I've said to you over the past six years, but . . . you're not stupid, James. Quite the opposite, in fact."

She was still staring at the ground, so she didn't see the Head Boy smile to himself as he opened the door to the castle.

"Thanks," she heard him say.

During the following two days, James avoided saying anything about the plan of revenge that his best friends had concocted, and thankfully, none of the Marauders brought it up either. He was glad.

When Sirius had first told him about it, he had been in a bit of a difficult position. It seemed hard to believe, but James Potter was more concerned about passing him NEWTs than he was about making life miserable for Snape. However, he still couldn't help but be tempted by the plan. It was human nature wasn't it? Well perhaps it wasn't human nature to want to break into the Slytherin bathrooms and make tactical alterations to their hygiene products, but the idea was still very appealing. Since Sirius and Remus had mentioned it, his mind had already been skimming through possible recipes that they could pass off as shampoo.

It was old habit.

_No,_ he thought, _there were exams to pass, Head Girls to appease and dates to be won._ As long as he wasn't tempted by the thought of replacing soap with congealed Flobberworm, he could concentrate on his studies in peace.

This method worked like a charm until Sunday night, that is, the night before their first exam.

Like everyone else in the seventh and fifth years, Lily, James, Amelia, Remus, Sirius and Peter were gathered around the tables in the Gryffindor Common Room. Every available flat surface was taken up with book, notes and inkbottles and there was a low blanket of conversation of people testing each other or asking to borrow notes.

Amelia and Remus were doing their best to teach Peter some last minute Herbology. He kept getting dandelion pollen and dragon fungus mixed up, turning the sleeping draught recipe into a cure for excess facial hair. Sirius did not seem to be doing anything productive at all. He was just sitting back with his feet propped on another chair, playing solitaire with a pack of exploding snap cards. He was also nodding occasionally, as if just sitting in a studious environment would be adequate compensation for having done the bare minimum of schoolwork.

The later it got, the emptier the Common Room became. Students began to accept that if they didn't know it now, they would never remember it, and drifted off to bed.

"We should turn in," Lily said, closing her textbook with a thump as the last of the OWL students disappeared and left them alone. "It's late, considering we have a Transfiguration exam tomorrow."

"Yep," nodded James. "The sooner we go to be tonight, the sooner it will be morning, the sooner it will all be over."

"What a strange way of thinking about it," Lily smiled. "But true enough, I suppose."

They gathered up their things. At the bottom of the staircases, there was a moment of silence from both of them. Lily glanced up at him and looked as if she wanted to say something inspiring, but could not think what.

"Goodnight, then," she said instead.

"Night night," James replied. There followed a space where James felt as though he ought to say something dashing, but could not think what.

The silence was gapingly empty. To fill it up more than anything else, James bent down and they awkwardly pecked each other on the cheek. Lily blinked a lot and shuffled her feet, but flashed a shy smile before climbing slowly up the Girls' Staircase.

In the Seventh Year Dormitory, James found all his friends wide-awake and talking.

"Can't sleep?" he enquired, dumping his things on his trunk.

"I'm not used to going to bed so early," Sirius complained.

"I'd be asleep now, if Padfoot didn't keep making so much noise," grumbled Remus.

"Excuse me, I am a victim of nervous energy!" Sirius stood up and leaned against the bedpost. "Surely that's grounds enough for Madam Pomfrey to keep in the Hospital Wing for a week. I'll have to miss the exams, but worse things have happened . . ."

"_A victim of nervous energy?_" Remus repeated incredulously. "I've never seen anyone so relaxed about NEWTs! You haven't even sharpened your quills!"

Sirius looked at him stoically. "Moony, everyone deals with stress in their own way."

"Perhaps you should go for a walk or something?" Peter suggested, plumping his pillows. Sirius suddenly stood up straight.

"There's a thought," he said. "We should all go for a walk, a long one, to the dungeons."

James cringed.

"To check if our friend Snape is using the correct shampoo for his hair-type?" asked Remus, grinning.

"That plan was too good to go to waste," Sirius decided, "and I'm sure I'll be able to get a good night's sleep after a random act of civil disobedience."

Soon enough, the three of them were assembled by the door, armed with their wands and the Marauder's Map.

"Come on, Prongs, get your cloak," Peter said.

"We'll probably need it for a diversion," Sirius nodded.

James could feel his resistance melting. "Er," he said.

"Prongs?" Remus said. "Lily will never know." He said it in a low voice as though the walls themselves were spies for the Head Girl.

James exhaled and opened his trunk quickly, rooting around for the invisibility cloak.

"We'd better be back within an hour," he said, pulling it out and despite his cautious words, he felt the old thrill in his stomach from its silky texture. All of them piled into the corridor, but didn't get very far.

At the other end, someone was climbing the stairs. At the first sight of red hair, James froze and the other Marauders stumbled into him.

"I just came to remind you about putting your name on the pa- . . ."

The atmosphere soured as Lily stepped into the corridor. James moved the cloak behind his back and felt it being taken out of his hands. He didn't know what he would achieve by this. It was clear that the Head Girl knew exactly what they wee doing as her eyes took them all in.

Still she asked, "What's going on?"

James spoke his words slowly, as if each one was a stepping-stone to a convincing lie he would eventually think of. It didn't work. "We were just . . . going out," he said. Behind him, he heard the door click closed. His friends had retreated silently and suddenly there was no one between himself and Lily's disapproval. For the moment, she was eerily calm.

"Where were you going?"

"The Dungeons."

"Why on earth?"

"To sabotage the Slytherin bathroom."

"The night before exams?"

"Yes." James resolved to improve his lying-to-Lily skills at a later date.

"Right," nodded Lily in a deadpan tone. She turned around and started back down the stairs. James jogged after her.

"We were going to be back soon," he said. "It was just a small plan to get Sirius to shut up. It was nothing."

"Maybe to you it was 'nothing'," Lily replied in a breezy tone. "Do you think it will be 'nothing' to Snape? Did you consider that he has a Transfiguration exam tomorrow, just like you? Bit below the belt, don't you think?"

Lily quickly crossed the Common Room from one set of stairs to another, climbing the girls'.

"Below the belt?" James replied, and had to laugh softly and nervously. "Snape doesn't have a belt to go below! Besides, I would have said that what he called you last week was below the belt."

"What? That insult that made you pick a fight and got you into this whole exam mess in the first place?"

"Yes, so he landed you in this exam mess as well! See?"

"No. I don't."

Unconsciously, James had begun to take the stairs two at a time, but only managed to take three steps before he ended up sliding back again, fighting to stay upright. Lily looked down on him from the steps above.

"This week has been the weirdest week of my life. I didn't even realise . . . I was stunned at how much you had changed," she told him, and her sincerity diluted her anger for a moment. "I was convinced that you were a different person . . . but you're not, are you? This is no different from swinging Snape up by the ankles. Today is just another Giant Squid day, isn't it?"

"Lily, don't say that! It's not true."

"It is! You haven't changed at all. I thought you had, but I was mistaken. And with exams starting tomorrow, I hope that's the last mistake I make for the rest of the week."

She turned and took another step.

"Lily, hold on . . ." James tested the bottom step again.

"Sorry, James."

It was the way she said it. For the first time since she had stated to use his first name, the sound of it cut him. "I don't want to talk to you. In case you've forgotten, I'm taking a few exams tomorrow as well. I want to go to be and not think about the fact that you can't hold up your end of the deal. Why should I hold up mine? You're on your own from now on. Whether you pass or fail makes no difference to me. I mean, it's your future, not mine . . . It's really . . . nothing to do with me."

She shrugged, and turned, and disappeared.


	6. Summer Started

**Six – Summer Started**

It felt as if the mattress was lying on Lily, instead of the other way around. When she woke the next morning, it took her a few moments to recall the exact details of the situation that were responsible for her miserable mood. Obviously, the first was that her NEWTs were beginning today. The second was that she and James had fought.

But you couldn't really call it a fight. Fights had been more common over the past two years. James's attempts to ask her out had been sporadically interrupted by insults flung, curses launched, cold glances tossed over opposite ends of the table, mostly at time when it became especially obvious that he had no chance. Those were proper fights, the sort that balanced out James's inane efforts.

Last night had been more a … rejection. Last night she had been plenty angry. So angry she hadn't even been able to bring herself to shout and rage at him. Now the edge of her anger had left her, she felt the blunt, sinking sadness of disappointment.

Snatches of birdsong drifted in from the circular window. It was still early. She'd kicked off the duvet in the warm summer night and it lay tangled at the foot of her mattress. Even so, it felt as if something was blanketing her, smothering her face and pinning down her limbs. She had been right all along. James Potter had not changed a jot. Perhaps he had sanded down some of the rougher edges of his personality, but he was still the same plank of wood, outwardly polished but rotten underneath. Lily was confident of the fact that she had successfully sussed his character for the last seven years. She had been absolutely right.

Why was she so miserable again?

For the next hour, Lily stared at the ceiling board of her bed and tried not to think about anything.

When alarms started to go off around her, she got up and was ready for breakfast in twenty minutes. Amelia and the other were strangely silent, murmuring softly only the most necessary statements and tiptoeing around each other. Lily sighed as she tightened her Gryffindor tie.

Today was the first day of a very long week.

* * *

It was on the way down to the Dining Hall that Lily found something she did not expect. At first, it seemed as thought the Common Room was empty in the early morning as she quickly made her way to the Fat Lady's portrait- … and jumped.

James Potter was sitting in an armchair that directly faced the bottom of the Girls' Staircase, a History of Magic textbook open on his chest, and fast asleep.

After she had gotten over the initial shock, the assertion renewed itself in Lily's mind that he was an idiot. Sleeping in an armchair the night before exams? It would serve him right if he woke up with a paralysing crick in his neck.

Except that …

Except that he hadn't gone out last night to play a prank on Snape, had he? He had stayed here all night. Lily could just imagine his thought processes, simple and sickeningly transparent as they were.

_You've really blown it now, haven't you? Absolutely. Now we're starting it all on a very bad foot. Maybe she'll come down again and let me apologise? Probably not. Better wait a while in case she does come down. She mustn't worry about all this in the exam. It's your duty to explain and apologise to her. Well, no use sitting here doing nothing. Might as well take another look at those Russian dates again. 1903 … 1916 … 1927 … zzzzz. _

Lily rolled her eyes, taking a few steps closer to his armchair and folding her arms hopelessly. She may have come to the conclusion that he wasn't stupid, but that didn't mean he wasn't an idiot.

But he was an idiot who had listened to her, an idiot who had chosen not to go out and do something that represented everything she used to hate about him. He was an idiot who had waited for her to come down so he could apologise.

And fallen asleep with a textbook on his stomach.

The sound of his breathing was sandy and his glasses were askew. As always, his hair looked like a garden abandoned for twenty years and overtaken by brambles. Lily tipped her head to the side and slowly unfolded her arms.

Carefully, she lifted his glasses off his face and placed them on the arm of the chair. She was just about to push his hair out of his eyes when someone beside her said:

"What are you doing?"

Lily nearly jumped out of her Gryffindor tie, jerked her hand back and whirled around to face Amelia who was standing _right next to her._

"Bloody hell," she gasped. "You scared the magic out of me."

"I bet I did." Amelia smiled. "Still angry?"

"Very much so," Lily nodded insistently. James shifted in his sleep and the textbook clattered to the floor. Lily hastily retreated before he could wake up.

"So you were _angrily_ taking off the poor boy's glasses?" Amelia asked, following he best friend out of the Portrait Hole.

"Absolutely."

"Bollocks."

"Shut up. I think it's cruel of you to be confusing me two hours before an exam."

* * *

It was about ten minutes later that James woke up. Someone was kneeing him firmly in the chest.

"Piss off, I'm busy waiting for someone," he said, waving a hand vaguely at the figure blocking out the morning sunlight.

… Sunlight?

"Huh! Charming! Here I was thinking you were going to turn over a new, studious leaf and this is the second time you've slept somewhere other than your own bed this week."

Before he could say anything, James felt himself being dragged up by the arms. Remus and Sirius were hauling him towards the dormitories. It must be morning.

"Peter, pick up his specs, will you?"

"All right, I can walk!" he said gruffly, standing up and straightening his sleep-rumpled sweater.

"Can you shower and change into your school uniform?" asked Sirius. "That would be useful."

"Even broken shells of manhood should have good hygiene habits," Remus nodded.

"Broken shells of manhood?"

"You and Lily aren't speaking, are you?"

"Lily isn't speaking _me_," James corrected. "It's quite a different matter."

His friends looked at each other, full of sympathy. None of them was keen to point out that the matter was in fact quite similar, at least from where they were standing.

"We'll save you some breakfast," said Peter, and handed over James's glasses.

"Try to think about irrelevant things," Sirius suggested, "like exam technique."

"I would hardly call that irrelevant at this point, frankly," Remus muttered.

"Look, it honestly doesn't matter," James said, waving them away impatiently. Peter had to duck to avoid being skewered in the eye by James's glasses. "It's heart-warming that you're all making an effort on my behalf, but you really don't have to. I mean, we've got an exam today. You should be worrying about your own hides."

Quite unexpectedly, Sirius came over all matter-of-fact.

"Oi," he said, and pointed a finger. "You listen to me, Prongs, I will have no more of this ridiculous talk. If we want to worry about you, that's our own business."

"Just think how we would have ended up, James," Remus added quietly, "if we only worried about our own hides."

James smiled faintly. Then he attributed his moment of annoyance to exam stress, lack of comfortable sleep and romantic quarrels. "I knew there had to be some reason why you lot were my friends."

"Damn right," said Sirius, and strode off towards breakfast without another word.

James rubbed his eyes and look at the pair of spectacles in his hand. He would pass, he promised himself. He would pass, and he would show her she had not been wrong to say that he had changed for the better.

He suddenly realised that he did not remember taking off his glasses the night before.

* * *

"Turn over your papers, you may now begin."

James watch Professor McGonagall rotate a large hourglass over on its axis at the front of the room. After much rustling, every candidate either began to scribble or continued to stare in horror at the paper.

James turned over his paper.

_Outline a) the function of and b) the historical context in which the alarm charm was discovered_

James grinned in spite of the situation. This was one of the very first things that Lily had been required to explain to him. He looked up to seek out the Head Girl, before remembering that they were no longer speaking. She was sitting in the same row as him, three seats to the left, reading all the questions in the paper before she began. As usual, she looked impeccably smart. Hair brushed, uniform pressed, ankles crossed under her seat. If it weren't for the faint circles under her eyes, James would have found it hard to imagine that she was at all ruffled by the events of the night before.

He was just about to dip his anti-cheating quill into the ink when she looked at him. It wasn't a look that could be called substantial or meaningful. It was a mere flick of the eyelashes and a small quirk of the lips before she turned her attention back to the paper. However, it told James in a moment that she had read the first question and thought of him.

He began to write.

And so over the next week, this became something of a habit for both of them. Actually, it amounted to all the interaction they had with each other during that week. With each new paper he turned over, James would glance at Lily. Lily would glance back. To the casual observer, these glances meant nothing, but Lily took James's to mean:

_I remember this. I know what I'm going to write. Thirty-mark essay question? Bring it on. _

James interpreted Lily's glances to mean:

_If you can't think of anything to write for this question, I'll never forgive you._

Of course, they didn't speak once they came out of the exam room, stretching and digging their thumbs into the aching joints of their writing hands. There, the rules of their ... disagreement stipulated that they had once more become irreconcilable enemies.

But in the exam room, in the muted silence of the hall, broken only by quill scratching, orders of the invigilator and coughs of the candidates, it seemed like they had entered another world where the rules of the normal one faded away. There, they were united in a common cause that negated their petty argument.

By the time they turned over their History of Magic papers, their glances had begun to contain volumes of conversation.

_I know this. _James gave Lily a barely perceptible nod.

_I know you know this. _Lily blinked back slowly.

_I know you know I know this. _James gave a slight smile.

_Stop knowing, start writing._ Lily rolled her eyes and turned back to the page.

So extensive was their correspondence during the first five seconds of every exam, James was surprised they didn't get disqualified for cheating. However, after those first five seconds, James found that he actually remembered very little about what the papers actually contained. The information had been drilled into him so thoroughly that words scurried out of his quill mechanically. He felt a little like a telephone operator during the Second World War, translating Morse code without any idea of its overall significance.

Accordingly, every post-exam conversation he had with Remus went something like this:

"Wasn't too bad, was it?"

"Nugh."

"Hand hurt much?"

"Nugh."

"Answer all the questions?"

"Nugh."

"I see. Well, thank you so much for your stimulating analysis." But his friend was smiling.

All in all, it was a bit of an anticlimax when they were finally told to put their quills down after their very last exam. The seventh years were so exhausted no one even thought to cheer on exiting the Great Hall. Instead, there was a peaceful, almost Zen-like calm amongst them as they drifted outside in a gaggle, too shell-shocked to generate more than a murmur of conversation.

James looked idly around for Lily, but without much hope. As usual, she had disappeared. Even if she hadn't, it would have been a fruitless endeavour anyway. What would he have said to her? Now that exams were over, there was no more revision to be done, no dates to remember, no wand movements to practice …

It seemed that all ties between them were now severed.

The Marauders claimed a bench near the castle to collapse on, one of the ones with the best view. The courtyard opened out onto the grounds through a set of arches. Between them, they watched the seventh years stumble down towards the lake.

For a while no one said anything, until Sirius decided that the breeze and the birdsong alone were too oppressive.

"Cheerful buggers, aren't we?" he remarked. "Considering exams have just finished an' all."

"My hand will never be the same again," lamented Peter, "and I still didn't manage to get to the end of that last question."

"What do we do now?" Remus asked despondently. "I've got nothing to work towards. I feel like one of those prison inmates who serves seven years and can't deal with the outside world. You know … institutionalised. Where are we going?" he asked, and raised an arm expectantly as if a piece of paper would be handed to him bearing the answer. "What is life, if not an exam?"

"Remus, you're scaring me," Peter told him, eyes wide.

James then said: "What this place needs …"

All of his friends looked at him, surprised, not because anything he had said was particularly important or surprising, but because it was the first time he had strung more than two words together since exams had begun.

"… is a bit of entertainment," he finished. Remus and Sirius glanced at each other.

"Is that so?" Sirius finally chose to say.

"Yes," James nodded. It was a single, sure nod like that of someone falling asleep on the Knight Bus, and his mouth twitched into a smile, but a small one.

He then suggested a plan.

It was met with enthusiastic approval.

It was perhaps fortunate that the Marauders had chosen to occupy themselves after the exam. The Friday afternoon was the beginning of three weeks of agitated frivolity at Hogwarts between the end of exams and end of term, where lessons were only a background noise behind something truly important: preparing for the summer. After the stress of the past month, most students had not trouble slipping into a state of happy boredom.

And boredom did not suit the Marauders. It was best for all involved that the four of them were occupied for the Friday afternoon.

* * *

It began the following morning when an innocent second year made the unassuming remark that he might have missed the out the fifth question on his History of Magic paper. Instantly, he was struck by a cheap, disposable, pigeon-feather quill that appeared out of thin air. Before the poor boy could say 'extra-credit', the quill had scrawled 'WORRY-WART' in large red letter on his forehead.

It didn't take people long to realise that any discussion, muttering or whisper of anything even vaguely relevant to exams was going to make them a target for these quills. These popped out of thin air to scribble things like 'NERVOUS WRECK', 'MARK OBSESSED' and 'GET A LIFE, YOU LOSER' on any exposed anatomy of the victim.

Some were appalled at being labelled in such a way and made attempts to scrub off the ink, only to find that it would not budge. A questionable few considered the scribbling as a badge of honour and chattered incessantly about exams, tests and grades, comparing their new collections of tattoos while quills flocked around them. Most took it all in good humour and laughed not at each other, but at the determination of the culprits to censor all mention of exams.

"This has all turned out better than we could ever have imagined!" James grinned, watching a Slytherin sixth year try to outrun a quill that was determined to declare her a 'BROKEN RECORD'.

When Filch cornered them on their way down to the lake, Remus watch James argue with seven years of experience that now was the time when students should be free from the cares of the fascist, achievement-driven establishment and needed to be guided into other areas of interest outside exams. Unfortunately, despite this display of rhetorical fireworks, Filch put them all in detention the following morning. While Peter tried to console a dejected James, Remus turned to Sirius and made an offhand comment before starting out of the doors.

"I think the old Prongs is back, don't you?"

"No he isn't."

Remus stopped and turned back to the darker-haired boy.

"Pardon?"

Sirius had an expression on his face that Remus had rarely seen from him, a slight smile and an upward tilt of the chin. It faintly resembled contentment and half resembled interest.

"That's not the old Prongs at all," he said. Remus turned to watch James stroll down the sloping grounds with Peter in tow. His back was straight and his arms loose, like they had been before he had taken on the robotic impression brought about by exams. Remus wondered if he had missed something.

"The old Prongs would never have done something like this," Sirius continued. "Maybe he would have done something directed at the professors, who gave us all this grief about exams in the first place, or maybe something at the Ravenclaws. Merlin knows they like to give us an in-depth analysis of everything academic we ever do around here.

"The old Prongs was always laughing at someone, and if he wasn't doing that, he was getting everyone else to laugh at someone. Of course, he's still making people laugh, but if it's at anyone, it's at him."

He put his hands in his pockets.

"I think it's important … how much she's changed him."

And with that, Sirius began to follow James, leaving Remus blinking in his wake. After a moment, her scrambled to catch up.

"Padfoot, I'm appalled," he told his best friend sincerely. "If only you put as much thought into your homework, you wouldn't have to copy mine."

"You're telling me this in the last days of term? Ha! Too late now!"

* * *

It was the second detention he had served in two weeks. There would have been nothing out of the ordinary about this, except that it strengthened James's suspicions that he would never change. Even when only two weeks before, he had made a promise to be good and pass his exams, here he was, scraping unknown substances off the walls of Greenhouse Three, and on the year's last Hogsmeade Weekend. He might have told Lily that he had changed, but in a way, he could see why she had yet to be convinced.

In the summer heat, the air in the greenhouse seemed even more tropical and the caked substances he was cleaning off the glass had developed a distinctly unsavoury smell.

Yesterday, he had been thrilled at how their little stunt had gone. He only hoped someone had managed to get a picture of Professor McGonagall emblazoned with 'YOU SHOULD GET OUT MORE'. Now the novelty had worn off.

He was back to feeling at a loss. More than that, he was fast realising that the week he had spent wrestling knowledge with Lily had been one of the best of his entire life. Even whilst trying to cram seven years worth of four subjects into his brain in only a week … he had enjoyed himself quite a bit.

He supposed it was because he was in love with her, or something silly like that.

Sighing, he wiped his forehead with the wrist of his canvas glove. Something was stretching its creepers over his shoulder again. He swatted it and vine retreated. Sirius, Remus and Peter had all been assigned to clean different greenhouses to stop them, as Filch put it, from 'fraternising'. James couldn't possibly see what there was to fraternise about. He was cleaning tuber pus off the walls. This sort of things was hardly going to stimulate rip-roaring conversation.

Even so, the old caretaker was sat just ten feet away from the greenhouses, with a view into every one. He claimed it was only 'to keep an eye on you slippery lads', but James couldn't help feeling there was something purely sadistic about the deckchair, umbrella and iced pumpkin juice that Filch and his cat had brought out into the sun.

Something tapped his shoulder again. He brushed it away. Bloody plants. Another tapping on his arm this time.

"Oi," he said, turning around irritably. "Is this how you treat someone who's trying to clean your- …"

"Shh!" He nearly jumped out of his skin when he came face-to-face not with green leaves, but with green eyes instead. She needn't have said anything at all, really. James was too shocked to speak. It was typical. The universe was playing a massive cosmic joke on him. After all the spare moments he had spent looking for her, she had managed to sneak up on him like this. Now he was paralysed under all the things he wanted to say to her.

Of course, the fact that she was wearing a blue scarf around her head and a pair of white shorts did not help at all.

"Keep cleaning!" she ordered. "Quick! Filch is watching!"

Somehow, James managed to convince his knees to turn around to the glass again. She was standing _right behind him_ so as to keep out of the caretaker's view. He could almost feel her cheek and shoulder and arm down the length of his spine. His cloth squeaked on the glass.

For a moment, she didn't say anything. James continued pretending to clean. If he tilted his head, he could see her reflected in the glass.

"I got the wrong greenhouse at first," Lily said suddenly. "Remus had to tell me which one you were in."

Although it was encouraging that Lily was once again speaking to him, James hoped that she had not sought him out only to tell him that.

"You found me in the end," he said, unable to think of anything outside that moment right there where he could feel her standing right behind him. His reflection in the glass was going red across the nose.

His wit, charm and charisma all seemed to have formed a workers' union and gone on strike. He couldn't for the life of him think what he wanted to say. He decided to ask her.

"Do you want me to apologise? I will. I mean, I haven't have a chance to -"

"No." James saw her raise a hand in the glass, but it wasn't to stop him. She almost touched the back of her hand against his shoulder, but didn't. "You shouldn't apologise without having done anything."

"But you're angry with me, aren't you?"

"I wasn't angry, I was … sad."

"Sad is worse than angry."

"Is it?"

"_Far_ worse."

In the moment of silence that followed, James realised that he had been scrubbing the same spot for nearly two minutes and Mrs Norris was beginning to sniff curiously in his direction. He moved along a bit and Lily shuffled along behind him.

"Would you let me apologise?" she asked.

"What for?"

"For accusing you of being insensitive and immature and pigheaded, I suppose."

Her hand rose again, and waited in the air as if she didn't quite know what to do with it. In the end she clutched a handful of the back of his shirt. James lost sight of her face in the glass as she leant her head closer into the space between his shoulder blades.

"I wasn't angry," she said, and her voice was suddenly inside his ribcage. "I've been angry plenty of times before, but it was the first time that I'd ever been sad about something you'd done. If I had been angry, it would have meant that I couldn't have cared less about what you did the night before exams, but I couldn't make myself be angry."

James stilled.

"It's pretty terrifying, you know, when it hits you that you really care about someone."

All of a sudden, James was laughing and turning around.

"Don't tell me you want to apologise for that!"

Detention be damned, he wanted to look at her. He wanted her to see the biggest smile on his face.

"You can't possibly apologise for that," he said again, shaking his head.

She smiled nervously, and in three decisive movements, James pulled off his gloves, put his arms around her shoulders and tugged her forward. She stumbled face first into his neck. Three anxious breaths later, her arms came up tensely around his middle and James squeezed her shoulders into his chest as hard as he could.

His gloves and cloth lay on the floor next to their feet, all in a row.

It then occurred to James that Lily's presence in the greenhouse probably wasn't a secret from their caretaker anymore. He had probably landed her in detention now as well.

What he did not foresee was the sudden sound of smashing glass accompanied by botanical splattering noise. He and Lily turned to peer over at Greenhouse Two, only to see Filch rushing towards the yellow-y viscous mess that had exploded out through the front of the building.

_"What in the name of Merlin's beard was that?" _the caretaker demanded, picking up his cat hurriedly.

Remus's voice was one of perfect innocence.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, sir. I have no idea what happened. I must have brushed against it accidentally and made it release its spores . . ."

Before he could blink, Lily had grabbed James's hand and yanked him out of the door. Next thing, they were sneaking around the back of the greenhouses and jogging up to the castle.

"Is this what I think it is?" asked James. "Are you getting me out of detention?"

"It wasn't all my idea," she replied, and James made a note to thank Remus later. "Besides," Lily continued, turning around to face him, "I'm only claiming what you owe me."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Well, I helped you pass your exams, didn't I?" She crossed her arms.

"We don't know whether I've pas- I mean, you have, yes, carry on."

"And in return for that, did you not promise me a date?"

James pushed his glasses up his nose and tried to look impartial.

"That I did, yes."

"Well, today's the last weekend we're allowed to go to the village," Lily began to walk slowly towards the castle, "and if I remember correctly, you promised me Zonko's and Warlocks' drinking matches, didn't you?"

"Absolutely."

"So you can see my reasoning."

"Of course." James fell into step beside her. "Do you really think I've passed all my NEWTs, then?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about exams," she teased. "Wasn't that what all those quills were about?"

"Well, yes, but … do you?" They came to a stop for a moment.

"I can't say," she shrugged. "Only you can make any sort of guess about that. To be honest though, I've stopped caring about your stupid NEWTs."

"Oh?"

"I saw you work so hard, James," Lily told him earnestly, and he blinked at the sound of his name through her voice. "Frankly, compared to everything you've done, your results are only four letters on a piece of paper." She took a step closer to him and fixed him with a stare. "Let's just say, even if you failed all four, you still wouldn't be able to get out of taking me out, all right?"

As far as James was concerned, the summer of his seventh year began in that moment, the moment when he looked at her, and took her hand, and _laughed._

**END**


End file.
